Users of smart phones and other mobile programming devices may dictate commands and other text content into device microphones, wherein the device (or service in communication with the utilized device) applies speech-to-text processing to the spoken content to transform the speech content into text content for processing (for example, to determine a command to respond to, or to generate a text message from the spoken content, etc.). However, background noise may interfere with consistently receiving and processing the spoken content, resulting in failure of the devices to accurately receive and transform all of the spoken content. This problem is exacerbated when the relative volumes, types and tonal qualities of the background noise vary over time, which is common with respect to mobile usage in crowded or urban environments.
The “cocktail party effect” refers to the ability of a listener to selectively focus on and comprehend the speech content conveyed by a single speaker within a noisy environment that presents a wide variety of competing sound inputs, sometimes including speech inputs from other different speakers. Environments presenting cocktail party effect challenges from sound inputs that include many people speaking simultaneously include meeting rooms, classrooms, mass assembly venues presenting sporting events or musical performances, coffee shops and restaurants, bars, etc. Cocktail party effect challenges may also be presented by environments that present background noise sounds, levels and profiles that vary over time, such as within a moving automobile passing through a variety of different environments.
Through selectively applying a variety of compensating techniques to focus upon a single speaker within noisy environments, generally referred to as the “cocktail party effect,” a listener is enabled to focus on and comprehend the speech content of one speaker, to “tune into” a single voice and “tune out” all other voices, music inputs, etc. Further, listeners are also able to simultaneously monitor the tuned-out content to immediately detect words of importance originating from said tuned-out or unattended other voices or stimuli, for instance hearing one's name in another conversation or as broadcast over an audio speaker that the listener was not focusing upon.
Cocktail party effect abilities rely upon a complex combination of human cognitive abilities, and vary as a function of age, wherein the ability to filter out unattended stimuli reaches its prime in young adulthood, and then diminishes with further aging. Older adults generally have a harder time than younger adults focusing in on one conversation if competing stimuli, like “subjectively” important messages, are included in background noise stimuli.